


Wait Till Victor Comes

by J_Baillier



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Autism Spectrum, Child Death, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 19:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13278726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier
Summary: "Lots of children process grief the way Sherlock is now doing – by creating imaginary friends," the child psychiatrist tells them at a family meeting. "It's completely harmless."Mycroft isn't sure at all about that.





	Wait Till Victor Comes

**Author's Note:**

> The canonical age difference between Sherlock and Mycroft is seven years. For the purposes of this story, Sherlock is six and Mycroft twelve.
> 
> Edit: OMG SeaWeedWrites [wrote wonderful a fic based on this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13284510)!

It's Mycroft's birthday, and his parents are making a big fuss about it. But, even though the candles on the cake are the exact right amount and all the present cards are addressed to Mycroft, he isn't the centre of attention.

It's because Sherlock is coming home today, and Eurus never will.

They're living at Aunt Beth's, at least for a while. Mycroft doesn't like to think about the night home burnt down. It makes him feel like nothing will ever be safe again, not really, not entirely.

Sherlock probably won't have those sorts of naive ideas anymore, either. Mycroft knows what Eurus did. He saw the drawings, and sometimes he feels that he was the most frightened that they might come true. Adults don't want to want to believe bad things about children.

Uncle Rudy cuts him a piece of the cake before everyone else has even arrived. It feels like cheating, blowing the candles with just the two of them present. Uncle Rudy says it's because they don't know how Sherlock would react to candles.

Nobody ever knows anymore how Sherlock will react to anything.

Mycroft has been to visit him with Mummy and the children's ward. They had tried to hide from him the fact that it wasn't just any children's bed ward – it was one for children who were messed up in the head. It didn't surprise Mycroft. Sherlock had always been a bit weird, but now he was properly different.

Before, he'd been a chatterbox who followed Mycroft around and pretended not to understand _shut up_ or _go away_ because he was so enthusiastic about so many things that he couldn't contain himself. Anything could catch his attention, and he would devote days to that thing, throwing terrible tantrums if someone tried to get him to do something else.

Sherlock won't eat any of the cake. He'll scream if someone tries to make him because he hates things he needs to eat mixing together on his plate, and whipped cream he hates more than most other things in the world.

He seems to hate a lot of things now, more than ever before. He doesn't talk a lot, just sits, rocks himself, and even the way he plays makes Mycroft sad. It's only half an effort he makes, often abandoning what he'd been doing to just bury his face on a pillow, wrap his arms around his knees and put his chin on top – or stand in front of windows, staring out.

Father had talked to Mycroft about him yesterday. "We've put a bed for him in your room. It'll be better if you two boys stick together, now. He gets scared at night, so I need you to keep him company if that happens. Maybe read to him? I've heard you do all the different animal sounds when you're reading to him, it sounds wonderful," Father says proudly.

That's what they used to do together, read books. Mycroft doesn't tell Father that Sherlock prefers less babyish books now – he wants to look at bird books and books about space and minerals instead of listening to stories.

He has nearly finished his piece of cake when he hears the car outside. Uncle Rudy steals his last spoonful with a smirk, and they go to the foyer with Aunt Beth, who opens the front door.

Mummy is carrying Sherlock, who's looking around the garden with apprehension. He's been to a lot of strange places lately, including the hospital. This is yet another one. This is not home. There will be one, in Surrey, but it won't feel safe like Musgrave Hall had done. The fire had taught Mycroft that anything could be lost, forever, even things you thought would always keep you safe.

Instead of burying his face in Mummy's hair like he always used to do when nervous or sad, Sherlock's back is straight, and it seems like he's looking past all of them, into the house, through the house, somewhere human eye can't reach. A thousand-yard stare. Lost in thought. This is what he'd looked like at the hospital, completely obvious to the noise other children playing around him were creating.

Aunt Beth reaches out for Sherlock's hand. "Hello, little one."

Sherlock screams.

  
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-  
  


Life settles into some sort of a routine, but it is far from a normal one. Father drives daily between Aunt Beth's and Surrey where their new house is being renovated. Mummy helps Aunt Beth around the house and tries to spend as much time with Sherlock as she can. Mycroft reads and does the schoolwork he has been allocated – he goes to a private school, spending only holidays at home, but Father says that it's important that he's home for a bit and that such a clever boy will have no trouble catching up with school when he goes back.

He has a nagging sense that he's expected to do something, but he isn't quite sure what. He tries to play with Sherlock, but Sherlock prefers to go out into the woods surrounding the house to play alone. Sometimes he hums that horrible rhyme Eurus had force-fed him after Victor had disappeared, but for Sherlock, it doesn't seem to be connected to anything that upsets him; it's just a melody. Mummy says that the medication he's taking makes things easier.

Mummy takes Sherlock to lots of doctors, some of them as far as in London. Sherlock always comes home stressed out and angry from these visits, tears out of the car like a wild animal and runs to the woods, not caring if it's already dark.

"Maybe he likes a bit of space," Aunt Beth says. She doesn't say why this could be so, but everyone knows. Sherlock no longer has a shadow of a sister who watches his every step, who constantly tries to make him do things, someone who tries to shove themselves into his and Victor's play even though she doesn't really understand how it all works.

Eurus is gone. Why would Sherlock need space? He's already free.

At least there's nothing dangerous out there in the woods. It's a nature reserve. Mycroft doesn't like going out into the dark alone. He doesn't understand how a six-year-old boy could be so much braver than he is – he's supposed to be the clever one. Father calls him rational. He'd checked the word in the dictionary when he'd been Sherlock's age. It's a really good one.

He asks Mummy over milk and biscuits on evening why Sherlock needs so many doctors.

"Well, small problems can be solved by one person, but for big problems you need lots of lots of smart doctors."

"Is it helping?"

"That's what we're hoping for."

"How can you tell if it helps?"

Mummy glances over to Sherlock who's reading a book on dinosaurs, lips moving as he seems to be analysing what he is seeing. He can read some easier words; the dinosaur names are way too difficult for him yet. He used to run to Mycroft when he found a word that was too difficult, but now he's so lost in his own head that he barely even seems to register the company of others, unless they force him to abandon what he's doing and take part in something nasty instead, like brushing teeth. That's something Sherlock has always hated. He says it feels like drowning.

"We'll just know. He'll be a bit more like before, maybe."

That sounds awfully vague to Mycroft.

"Can they help Eurus?" he plucks up the courage to ask. Mummy and Father are clearly avoiding talking about her. If Sherlock needs this many doctors, then Eurus probably needs at least three times as many.

Mummy's lip shakes a bit when she raises a teacup to her mouth. "Oh, Mikey, love. You shouldn't worry about these things. They're not your responsibility."

What _is_ his responsibility?

"Can I help?"

"Not Eurus, no. But I think you can help Sherlock a lot. I'm sure he still loves you very much, but he's been through a lot of difficult things. Maybe he doesn't know how to spend time with you anymore. You could help him with that."

Mummy then looks at the clock, sighs and prepares for the new evening ritual of chasing down and then wrestling with a squirming Sherlock so that he'd take his breathing medications. It's not really asthma, which is what Mycroft used to need an inhaler for, but Father says the medication's quite similar. It's because of the fire. It did something to Sherlock's lungs that's taking a long time to heal.

  
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-  


  
"I don't want to read a stupid book about rabbits!" Sherlock declares. "You're _boring_!"

Mycroft rolls his eyes and puts _Watership Down_ away. Maybe it's a bit sad, but he likes it. It isn't glossy and colourful and cheery like most children's books. It feels more like life feels.

This is Mycroft's latest attempt to do what Mummy had asked: to try to get Sherlock to spend time with him.

They had never had many friends, him and Sherlock. Mycroft got along fine with other children but tended to get along better with adults since other children are.... well, stupid. No other children had lived close to Musgrave Hall, and Mummy says it's because they had started a family so late in their lives that they didn't know a lot of people with children Sherlock's age. In reality, the reason why Sherlock didn't have friends was that other children tended to be a little scared of him. He didn't know how to act around them. Either he was too keen, tried too hard, or he was accidentally really mean and didn't even notice it himself.

Then Victor moved into the village. He was a quiet, gentle boy a year older than Sherlock. They became inseparable, fast. He didn't expect Sherlock to be like other children, and Sherlock came up with lots of ideas for play which Victor seemed to like. Pirates. He was Redbeard, Sherlock Yellowbeard. They had a secret club of their own to which nobody else was invited. Mycroft had once pointed out that there were plenty of famous pirate captains who could join in, mainly because Eurus had begged him to _make_ Sherlock play with her.

But, there was no room in Victor and Sherlock's friendship for anybody else. He seemed to be the best thing that ever happened to Sherlock until he became the worst. And, that was only because Eurus could not stand the sight of him. Why she'd been so frighteningly jealous of Sherlock, nobody knows. Maybe simply because Sherlock and Victor were the only children close to her own age she knew. She frightened people even more than Sherlock did, and after all the frustration of trying to find Sherlock playmates who wouldn't lock him in wardrobes and call him names, their parents had given up. She wasn't in a nursery, and neither was Sherlock.

Eurus had noticed she was different. She noticed everything. She noticed the way adults talked about her. She knew how smart she was. Maybe it was just too insulting to her that Sherlock would pick a friend who was, in all ways, much more average than her.

Nobody has been able to prove anything, but Mycroft knows that not all coincidences are coincidences and that the facts are simple: Eurus hated Victor. Victor disappeared.

That could have been just a coincidence, sure. But then, Eurus tried to kill Sherlock. It's hard to think about that because Mycroft's first thought is always how strange that is. Other children don't go around trying to kill their sisters and brothers. Mycroft is smart, too – maybe not as smart as Eurus, but he has never felt like doing anything so horrible.

And now Eurus will never come home. Mycroft doubts that Victor will, either.

"Where are you going?" Mycroft asks when Sherlock puts his shoes on and goes to the door. Aunt Beth is peeling potatoes in the kitchen, so she might not even notice Sherlock slipping out again.

"In the forest."

"What do you do in the forest? There's nothing there," Mycroft complains, annoyed.

"Victor is there," Sherlock says as though that's something that should be obvious to everybody and slips out of the door.  
  


  
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-  
  


  
Some weeks later, Mycroft slips into bed and notices that Sherlock isn't sleeping like he's supposed to – instead, he's sitting in bed with his blanket spread over him. His bedsheets are blue, and the light shining through the blanket is slightly bluish as well. Mycroft hears him whispering, giggling underneath.

He sounds like himself. He sounds like Sherlock before things had gone bad with Eurus. Mycroft sits and listens and smiles.

Maybe Mummy is right about the doctors – that it takes time for the things Sherlock does with them to help. Maybe it's working a bit, already.

He doesn't go tattle to Mummy that Sherlock is playing instead of sleeping. He picks up a book and reads for half an hour until he decides that they should both be settling in for the night.

He walks to Sherlock's bed, pokes the glowing mound in the middle. "Who are you talking to?"

Sherlock goes quiet, then the light underneath the blanket goes out, and a curly head pops out from underneath. "No one."

"Okay. We should sleep now, though."

Sherlock drops his head on the pillow, draws the blanket to his ear. He doesn't say "good night," like he always used to say to Mycroft in the evening. But, that doesn't make Mycroft less happy about what he's heard.

He isn't even angry that Sherlock had borrowed his flashlight without asking. He even decides to let Sherlock have it for a while.

He goes back to his own bed. Moonlight is shining brightly through the window.

In the dim, cold light, Mycroft sees that his flashlight is right where he'd left it on top of his bedside cabinet.

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

 

Mycroft gets tired of listening to Mummy and Father fighting with Sherlock at meals. He has been a fussy, suspicious eater ever since Eurus tricked him into eating all manner of disgusting things by convincing him that they were something completely different. She seemed to be fascinated by his reactions – the worse it was for Sherlock, the happier Eurus seemed to become.

It was horrible.

Now, Sherlock won't eat anything he hasn't seen being prepared or taken out of a shop package.

"I don't have to eat. Victor says I don't. He doesn't eat, either," Sherlock says when Mycroft asks why he won't even touch the sweets Aunt Beth had given them. Mummy had been a bit angry about the sweets because Sherlock hadn't been eating proper food.

"I saw Victor eat a lot of things," Mycroft says. Victor had certainly not been skinny, but Mycroft won't begrudge him for his shape since it's quite similar to his own.

"But now he doesn't have to," Sherlock declares triumphantly, picks up the wooden sword he hasn't touched since Victor disappeared and runs off into the woods with it.

  
  
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-  
  
  


"I've had it with him running around in the dark," Father says. "We have to start introducing some sort of discipline in this house again, Mills," he tells Mummy.

She nods and turns to Mycroft who's finishing up some homework in the sitting room since it's nice and warm there in front of the fireplace. 

"Will he go to school soon?" Mycroft asks. There's been talk that Sherlock might skip a grade since he's so clever, go straight to the second year, but that was before all the bad things happened. Now, not even Mycroft is going to school for a while. Maybe if Sherlock gets to go to school, then he could return to Harrow. He likes being home with Mummy and Father, but it would be nice not to have to think about Eurus and Victor all the time. Mummy and Father being so sad and worried makes Mycroft feel heavy and a bit helpless.

Most of all, he wants to go back to school until their new house is ready because something's not right. He doesn't know if it's the house or the woods around it or something else, but something is definitely _off_.

There are little things, things that shouldn't be happening. Such as the sound of footsteps on the floor when Sherlock is neatly tucked into bed. Then there's also the fact that when Sherlock had been really angry with Mummy, a door had slammed in her face. She probably thinks Sherlock had slammed it but Mycroft had been in the room Sherlock had run to and seen that nobody was anywhere close to the door.

Sherlock keeps talking about Victor as though he's still alive. Mycroft doesn't think this is connected to any of the strange things, but it's unsettling because it's probably a sign of what's been wrong with him, and Mummy and Father aren't taking it seriously.

"It's good that he's talking about Victor. It means that he's processing things. Maybe, one day, he'll talk about Eurus, too. Before that happens, we shouldn't try to force him to."

Mycroft protests that he doesn't want Sherlock to _start_ talking about someone, he wants him to _stop_ talking about people who aren't coming back.

Before, Mummy had always reminded him that Victor was lost and not dead but then night frosts had begun and it seemed very impossible that a little boy could survive somewhere out there alone. And, if he wasn't alone, then someone had taken him, and Mycroft has read enough newspapers to know that such things never end well.

Now, Mummy says nothing about that. "He's too little to understand the balance of probabilities, Mikey," she says and ruffles his hair a bit. "For him, as long as nobody has found Victor, he could be still alive. Trying to force him to stop believing might not be good. It upsets him. He'll understand one day, but it takes time."

"But can't we at least say that Victor's not _here_?" Mycroft asks, "That he's not really here in the house."

Mummy frowns. "What do you mean?"

Mycroft tells her some of the things Sherlock has been saying. That Victor should have a plate on the table. That Mycroft shouldn't sit on the chair next to the window in their bedroom because it's where Victor likes to sit.

"I think I need to talk to Doctor Heather about this, ask her what we should do." Mummy finally says.

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

 

Doctor Heather invites them all to her office on Harley Street for what she calls a family meeting. Heather is her first name; Harper is her family. Mycroft doesn't like her. She talks down to children, especially him.

Sherlock doesn't like her, either, even though Father says she's quite an expert. An expert on what?

She has lots of fancy diplomas on the walls. Cambridge. Mycroft has looked at pictures of Cambridge in their parents' albums. He'd quite like to go there, though not to medical school like Doctor Heather Harper.

He'd like to be prime minister, instead.

"Lots of children process grief the way Sherlock is now doing – by creating imaginary friends," Doctor Heather tells Mummy. "It's completely harmless."

Sherlock is playing with seashells he has found at the bottom of the Lego box, trying to stack them up but the pile always topples. He does it over and over and over again, as though he somehow expects a different result.

Mycroft wonders if that's how it is with him and Victor – that every day, he wakes up hoping things will be alright, that Victor will ring the doorbell and invite him out to play. And every day when it gets dark, and he hasn't shown up, Sherlock starts searching for him. The cycle goes on and on, always ending in disappointment.

"But, should we indulge him, pretend along with him?"

"I know it may feel painful to do so, even a little grotesque," Doctor Heather says, lowering her voice but it's unnecessary since Mycroft is sure that Sherlock isn't listening at all. "He'll continue as long as he needs to, and once he's processed all of it, it will probably stop on its own."

She then turns to face Mycroft, bending her back so that her face is level with his. "You're a very good brother to worry about him," the Doctor says. "When someone goes away, different children and adults act differently. This is Sherlock's way of getting used to Victor not being here and Eurus, too," she whispers conspiratorially, watching Sherlock's monotonous, hypnotic play.

Mycroft wants to tell her that Victor didn't _go away_ ; someone must have taken him or he had an accident, and that Mycroft knows he may be dead and that he's already twelve and perfectly capable of understanding that word, _dead_. In the end, he says nothing, because he realises Doctor Heather had probably just been trying not to upset Sherlock. He usually understands a lot more than adults think.

"If this imaginary friend seems to be giving him directions or commands that are dangerous, then you need to get in touch. If it's just innocent things, him playing by himself and pretending to be Victor then I wouldn't antagonise him on that. Ask questions, maybe gently sometimes point out the logical flaws in his thinking, but keep in mind that this may be very important to him. You said that he tried to find Victor, that he really wanted to help. This is him dealing with not being able to do so."

What could Sherlock have possibly done to help? He is only six years old. Isn't it the adults' job to find missing children?

"Sherlock?" Doctor Heather asks. "Can you come here a bit?"

He looks at her, then back to the book he has now pulled out of the narrow shelf in the corner. It's about elephants. When he makes no move to come to where they are all sitting, Doctor Heather goes to him and leans down on her haunches. "Can I ask you something, Sherlock?"

He doesn't reply, but he closes the book.

"Have you been playing with Victor?"

He nods.

"Is he nice to you?"

"He's my friend," Sherlock mutters, and Mycroft can only barely make out the words.

"When did you last see him, Sherlock?"

"When I had cornflakes."

Someone had kicked Mycroft under the table at breakfast. He'd been certain it had been Sherlock because Father, who had sat opposite Mycroft, hardly would have done such a thing to him. It was just that Sherlock had been sitting at the other end of the table.

Sherlock says nothing more, but Mycroft speaks up: "I don't like that."

Doctor Heather stands up and returns to the circle of chairs. Sherlock stays off to the side, which makes him look cast out, alone.

"What don't you like?" Doctor Heather asks Mycroft.

"That he talks about Victor likes he's in the house."

Mummy puts a hand on his shoulder. "I know it's tough, Mikey; Victor was your friend, too, but Sherlock's been through a lot, and we have to help him, just like Doctor Heather says."

The family meeting ends, and while Father goes to fetch the car, Mummy tells Mycroft to take Sherlock to the men's room because the drive is long.

He waits by the sinks while Sherlock does his business. When they're about to walk out, Sherlock looks up at him, eyes narrowed. Determined. Angry.

"Victor is not your friend. He doesn't like you anymore because you want him to go away," Sherlock accuses.

"That's not true," Mycroft says, but it's useless because Sherlock must've been listening, after all, in the family meeting.

He probably knows now that it scares Mycroft, this thing that the adults are calling an imaginary friend.

It hurts, what Sherlock has just said because it makes Mycroft sound like Eurus, who wanted Sherlock all to himself. Mycroft knows he isn't like that – he _wants_ Sherlock to have friends, _real_ ones!

He tries to take Sherlock's hand because that's probably what Mummy will tell him to do when they cross the street to the car park.

Sherlock tears his hand away from Mycroft's grip. "He's not going to stay away just because you say so. Just wait till Victor comes."

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

  
Mummy is having a glass of wine with Aunt Beth that night, and Mycroft hears the sound of Father tapping away on his keyboard. He needs to calculate carefully the cost of things for the new house because the insurance company still hasn't given them money for Musgrave Hall.

Sherlock is doing who-knows-what in their shared bedroom. Talking to thin air, probably.

Mycroft lingers in the sitting room, watching whatever he finds on TV which his parents don't insist is only for adults. He knows he's stalling going to bed. He even knows why. Lately, the big windows and the high ceiling of the room have been making him feel alone at night, more scared than he's been before when it's dark.

At eleven in the evening, Father puts down his magazine and takes off his reading glasses, yawning. "Mikey," he starts, and it's all he needs to say.

Mycroft drags himself off the sofa, turns the TV off with the remote, and goes to brush his teeth. The toilet light crackles and then goes out. He tells Mummy, who says that she doesn't know where Aunt Beth keeps the spares, so he could get his flashlight from his bedside cabinet and use it to illuminate the toilet just for tonight.

He makes sure to turn on all the ceiling lights in the hallway when he goes to his and Sherlock's bedroom.

The room is dark, apart from what little light creeps in from the hallway when Mycroft pushes the door open.

Sherlock is standing in front of the large bay window on the opposite side of the room. His palm is pressed to the window. Rain is pelting the glass from outside, and the darkness outside the house seems impenetrable.

Mycroft is just about to take a step further when he spots movement at the left lower corner of the window, close to where Sherlock is standing.

Distorted by the rain, it looks like a small hand outside the window, fingers splaying apart and pressing against the glass precisely on the spot where Sherlock's hand is on the inside.

"Redbeard, Yellowbeard, Bluebeard," Sherlock whispers to the rain and the darkness.

Mycroft's heart is pounding. Now that there is no movement anymore, he can't see if there's anything behind the window anymore, touching the glass. He bites his lips, steps inside and quickly slams his palm on the light switch. The bedroom is flooded with warm, yellow light.

Sherlock is startled, and he stumbles away from the window.

Mycroft stands frozen in the doorway, expecting the fear to lose its grip any moment now. They're safe inside; he can see the whole room, there's nothing but rain and leafless branches rapping against the window outside. He strides to the nearest window, pulls the curtains closed so roughly that the rings on the railings groan a bit. He closes all the curtains, leaving the large bay window last and closing his eyes so that he won't be tempted to look outside while he tugs on the fabric.

Sherlock goes to sit on his bed, pulls his knees to his chin, presses his face against his arms.

Mycroft thinks about Doctor Heather and Mummy and Father. The adults clearly aren't asking the right questions. They try to be supportive, try to play along. Nobody's asking the _difficult_ questions.

He goes to Sherlock but doesn't touch him. The halo of curls on top of his little brother's tightly wound form is shaking slightly, and Mycroft realises he's crying. He hasn't done that after the fire. Not once. Mycroft had heard Mummy and Father talking amongst themselves, saying that Sherlock doesn't know how, anymore, that his feelings are so frighteningly strong about everything that they're too much for him. The medications are supposed to help with that, but the first time Mycroft had seen Sherlock after he'd taken some had been horrible. He'd sat leaning against the wall in the hospital like a rag doll, limp and speechless.

Now, he's crying for the first time after that, and it doesn't make Mycroft feel like anything is any better. "Sherlock? Sherlock, who's Bluebeard?"

"Not you," Sherlock sniffles and wipes his nose on the side of his palm. _Gross._

"Then who? Is someone coming to the house and making you scared? Was someone climbing the vines to the window?"

"No," Sherlock says petulantly. He grabs his blanket and pulls it over his head.

Mycroft is not going to ask again if there was someone in the window. He's too scared of the answer.

"Why can't I be Bluebeard?" Mycroft asks. He tugs down the blanket from over Sherlock's curls. His face is red, but he looks calmer, now. Blankets have always been important for him for this purpose – burying himself underneath one is one of the only things that seem to settle his meltdowns.

"Victor says that Bluebeard will be my friend after he goes away. But I don't want him to go," Sherlock complains and starts crying again.

Mycroft sits on the bed next to him. To his astonishment, Sherlock leans against him a little. "I don't want him to go," he sobs.

Mycroft has had it with adults and their stupid advice. "There are real people who probably want to be your friends. We just have to find them."

"I don't want to be alone! Victor is alone, too, and you're trying to make him go away. Mummy would let him stay," Sherlock complains.

"Mummy doesn't think Victor is here at all, Sherlock. Nobody knows where he is."

Sherlock looks at him with an angry frown; tears are stuck to his eyelashes. He stands up, the blanket falling to the floor.

His arm shoots out, forefinger pointing to the bay window. "He was _right there_ before you scared him away!"

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

  
  
"I think someone's messing with the house," Mycroft says after swallowing down a lump of nervousness.

Father looks up as he's packing some paint brushes. He's going to the new house again. Mummy is out shopping with Aunt Beth. Father wasn't supposed to leave before they came back.

"Messing how?" Father asks. He walks to the kitchen, rummages around for a thermos.

Mycroft follows him. "I think someone's playing a joke or something. A cruel one. Maybe some kids from the village. Maybe Sherlock's played with them out in the woods and annoyed them like he always does."

Father looks sceptical. "What do you think they've been doing, then?"

"Pretending to be Victor," Mycroft says.

Father's head snaps up to look at him, lips forming an angry line. "Why would they know about Victor? None of the papers has mentioned his name."

"Sherlock could have," Mycroft says.

Father's frown softens, dissolves like a line drawn in wet sand. "You may have a point there, lad. It's cruel if that's really what they're doing, teasing a boy who's been through a lot. We don't know anyone from the village; I could ask Beth, but I doubt she knows every family with kids around these parts."

Father leans his palms on the kitchen counter. Both their heads then turn towards the front door since it has just opened and revealed Mummy and Aunt Beth bearing bulging bags from Tesco.

"Say what; the next time he goes into the woods, you could go and follow him," Father suggests conspiratorially. "Get a glimpse of these rascals, and we'll have a better chance of finding out who their parents are."

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

  
  
Mummy bans Sherlock from going into the woods after dark. Sherlock throws a lot of things, hitting her square on the chin with a toy train. As punishment, he's banned from going outside for a few days.

From then on, during daylight hours, he's like a cat trying slip outside through a door someone makes the mistake of opening: lingering in the foyer, ready to make a run for it.

"That boy is obsessed," Aunt Beth laughs. "What does he even do out there?"

"Did you hear Auntie Beth, sweetheart?" Mummy asks, "What do you play when you go to the woods?"

"Pirates," Sherlock says, his cheek pressed against the sitting room window. He stares forlornly into the rain that's turning the garden into a muddy mess. Father had put up a swing in an oak tree; Sherlock never sits in it. Mycroft does, sometimes. Sometimes, it seems to be swinging a bit more than the wind should be able to push it, and it makes Sherlock laugh.

Mummy glances at Mycroft. She's probably thinking that it's a good thing that Sherlock has picked up his favourite version of make-believe again. She probably thinks he's getting over all the bad things that have happened if he's playing Yellowbeard again.

Mycroft, however, is not sure at all that this is a good thing.

"Oh, drat," Mummy says. "I haven't got any eggs. The Harrisons down the road said last week that we could go pick some from their henhouse and showed me the place; will you be alright if I quickly pop in there?" she asks Mycroft.

Sherlock has left the room, presumably gone to their bedroom to sulk. He's good at it. He can do it for hours.

"Yes, Mummy," Mycroft says and continues stacking his Jenga bits. He's been reading books all day, and the words had started to turn into endless worms of letters. He doesn't really like Jenga, but it's the only game Aunt Beth has. All of his and Sherlock's games are gone, burnt down with the house.

"I don't want to send you because you won't know how to tell which eggs you should get, and I don't want you to pick up chicken fleas."

"Okay, Mummy." She seems hesitant to go, even though the Harrison farm is only a ten-minute walk. She glances towards the back of the house, even though you can only see some of the stairwell and nothing else from where she's standing in the kitchen. "Keep an eye on him, will you."

Mycroft doesn't want to sound like a parrot repeating things, so he simply nods. His Jenga tower topples, the sound of the pieces falling to the floor so loud that he flinches. Sherlock can't abide Jenga; he goes into full-on meltdown when the tower disintegrates. He likes order and control and routine. He likes knowing what will happen and when. You can't just drag him off somewhere suddenly. Having to go to the doctor on short notice is the worst. The dentist is the only thing Mummy won't tell him about well beforehand because he will panic and scream and hide the minute dentists are mentioned.

"There's nothing _wrong_ with Sherlock", Father had explained to Mycroft once; "he's just a bit different from the rest of us."

If he's just different, why did they put him in that ward for children in whom something _is_ wrong in the head? He'd asked Mummy this, and she'd told him not to call it that. "It's just a hospital ward for children."

How dumb do they think he is? His school friend Joshua Whishaw's dad had killed himself when he and Mycroft had been eight years old, and surely that's a really bad and horrible enough thing to happen to a kid, and nobody had put Joshua in that sort of a place.

Something is definitely wrong with Eurus. Really wrong. Sherlock isn't mean and cruel like she is, not at all.

Mycroft doesn't like to think about Eurus. He doesn't like to think about the fact that he doesn't really like his own little sister. She's _creepy_.

Mummy puts on a raincoat and wellies. "You're a good boy, Mikey. You're a great help."

He doesn't know how he's helping, sitting on the sofa staring at the Jenga blocks.

Mummy doesn't have a key to the house – Aunt Beth had lost her second spare and Father's got the only one. Mummy leaves the door unlocked, walks out into the rain and disappears from view down the path towards the driveway.

Mycroft listens carefully. He doesn't hear footsteps or the sounds of play. Yep, Sherlock is definitely sulking. Mycroft decides it's safe to go to the bathroom, and but when he's washing his hands he hears the front door open and then bang shut.

He runs to the living room – and manages to catch a glimpse of Sherlock's auburn mop of curls disappearing behind a bush. Mycroft says a bad word, nearly trips on his laces when trying to quickly put shoes, and runs as fast as he can down the front steps and then towards where he'd last caught a glimpse of that damned brat.

Mummy is going to be really really angry, but when Mycroft catches Sherlock he's going to be angry first! At least this might solve the mystery of what Sherlock does when he goes to the woods. Hadn't Father told Mycroft to follow him to find out why he was so hell-bent on spending so much time there?

The rain is icy cold, and neither of them is even wearing a coat. He needs to find Sherlock quickly. Jogging along the path that heads towards the nature reserve from the back of the house and already out of breath, he keeps glancing to the dark, rain-drenched woods on both sides of the path. He's startled when a woodpigeon takes into flight nearby.

It's strangely quiet; even the rain sounds as though its volume has been somehow turned down.

His steps halt when he hears laughter. It's Sherlock, somewhere close. Then, another voice – or at least Mycroft thinks so. It's familiar, but he only hears snippets of words and can't be sure of the identity.

"Sherlock!" he yells as loudly as he can. Nobody answers.

A branch breaks somewhere close. Mycroft turns a full circle on his heels, jumps over the narrow ditch next to the path towards the direction where he thinks he'd heard the sound coming from. He zigzags through a copse thick with young willows and finally, catches a glimpse of a small moving form ahead. "Sherlock," he calls out, "Wait for me!"

To his surprise, the moving form stops. He pushes through an opening in some bushes, and Sherlock is right there, standing in a small opening. His jumper is wet, and so is Mycroft's cardigan. They're both shivering already.

"Mycroft, look!" Sherlock exclaims enthusiastically, pointing towards a felled tree branch nearby.

There's nothing there but the wind and the rain.

Mycroft grabs his wrist and tries to drag him back towards the house. "There's nothing there," he says. "Mummy will be so mad."

Sherlock starts a tug-of-war, trying to twist his fingers off his wrist. "No! I want to stay!"

Mycroft stops, leans down on his haunches and looks his small brother in the eye. "You're wet; I'm wet, it'll be dark soon. There's _nothing_ here!"

He doesn't want to live like this anymore. He doesn't want to keep thinking about Victor Trevor all day because Sherlock won't let him go. He stands up and continues dragging Sherlock back towards Aunt Beth's. "Why can't you get it?! He's gone, he's probably dead!" he yells at Sherlock when he goes deliberately limp, making it even harder for Mycroft to get them to move.

Sherlock's eyes go wide with anger, he rediscovers muscle control and stomps his foot on Mycroft's, but with not enough force that it would hurt. "He's not dead, and you're _mean_! He's _here_! He's here and in the house and in the water!"

Mycroft stops. He's tired. He's tired of _being_ tired of being at home and being afraid and listening to these sorts of things, especially when Mummy and Father are not taking anything seriously. "How is he here? I can't see him. He wasn't on that tree. How would he be here – he's never visited Aunt Beth. How would he know how to come here? Why would he stay in the woods instead of knocking on the door? Why would he come here and not go home to his Mum and Dad?"

"I can find him. I can always find him. He wants me to find him."

Mycroft feels a bit tight in the chest. He sits on a rock, holding Sherlock by the shoulders. How does he make a six-year-old understand that it's not his fault or his responsibility, what happened to Victor?

A gust of wind makes the nearby brambles shake. It feels much colder than the air has felt before. They must be getting hypothermic. That's a good word. Mycroft had seen it in a medical book Father used to have in the study before it all burnt down.

When the sudden gust stops, the wind suddenly feels as though it's actually blowing in the opposite direction. It's quiet. No birdsong, no rustling of branches, no car sounds. The hairs on the back of Mycroft's neck raise up.

A wide smile spreads on Sherlock's face. "Victor!" he calls out and tears himself out of Mycroft's grasp. Mycroft says another really bad word and launches into a chase.

Sherlock is fast, but Mycroft's legs are longer, and he manages to keep his little brother in sight as they charge through the forest. He tries to memorise some details so that they'll find their way back to the house, but it's hard to focus on keeping Sherlock in his sights and trying to decide which details would be most useful.

After what is probably just a couple of minutes but feels much longer when his lungs are screaming for air, Mycroft is forced to slow down as Sherlock's route continues down a steep, moss-covered sand bank towards a pond. "Sherlock, _stop_!" he yells.

He doesn't. Sherlock jogs all the way to the water's edge, then turns to face him. Mycroft stops a few feet before, unsure what to do. He doesn't want to try to grab his brother, lest he falls in accidentally.

"Please stop this. We can talk to Mummy about Victor. We can put a plate for him on the table. We can do anything you want. Just please, _please_ come back to the house with me."

He takes a slow step forward, but before he even realises what has happened, he's sitting on his bottom on the muddy grass bank.

"You don't believe me," Sherlock says. "But we can show you!"

Mycroft tries to stand up, but suddenly something hits his chest, hard, knocking the breath out of him.  He scrambles to his feet – just in time to see that Sherlock is wading into the water.

"Sherlock, _don't_!" Mycroft screams and runs towards the pond, slipping a little. The water is black and still and looks bottomless.

Sherlock wades another step, then slips underneath the surface without a sound. The black water swallows him up completely.

Mycroft yells something, maybe not even words, tears off his cardigan and runs in. In the spot where he'd seen Sherlock go underwater, his own legs stop finding purchase underneath, and he splutters a little as he momentarily sinks below, too. He kicks frantically, coughing and managing to keep his head above the water. His jeans are heavy now that they're wet, but he knows he can swim and dive a little, too. He'd dived off the five-meter board at school.

He can't see Sherlock anywhere on the surface. He holds his nose, kicks harder, bends his head towards his toes and dives. Opening his eyes underneath isn't nice but how will he find Sherlock if he doesn't? At least this water doesn't sting like the sea or the chlorine in the pool at school.

He dives deeper; there's still air left in his lungs. He turns to the left, to the right, momentarily suspended in midwater, swallowed up by the murky emptiness where sound is distorted.

Then, he sees it – the outline of a small hand just outside his reach. One kick and he grabs on so tight it feels as though he's crunching bones together. He wastes no time in starting to kick upwards, but suddenly something yanks him downwards. He looks down towards the depths, wondering if Sherlock or his own foot had become tangled in vegetation or an old rope.

What he sees makes him nearly lose his grip in shock: there is another hand, a small one, holding onto what must be Sherlock's foot. In the darkness, it seems to emit a cold, white light, dim like the last glowing ember in the fireplace. The skin is pale and bluish white, an estuary of veins more visible on its surface then what would be natural. All he can see is the hand – the murky water hides the rest of whoever – or whatever – is trying to drag Sherlock away.

Mycroft tries to kick, uses his free hand to swim upwards, but nothing helps – they are being pulled towards the depths.

He closes his eyes.

 _Let go_. _Please let go_ , he thinks. _Let him live. You can't keep him_. _Help him let go._

His lungs are burning, all the oxygen he'd brought with him from the surface is gone. He's going to drown. He's twelve years old, and he's going to drown because he couldn't save his brother.

He grabs Sherlock's arm with both hands, kicks his legs away from the surface so that he's staring straight down towards the bottom. Then, he uses his last breath to deliver his last words.

" _Let him GO_ , Victor!" he yells as hard as he can, and his voice sounds alien in his ears, distorted and muted by the water.

Black dots are dancing in his eyes, and it's hard to hold on anymore.

Then, the frightening pull of the deep stops, and he feels lighter than air. He begins floating towards the surface, and Sherlock along with him. Suddenly, there's air. He flails on the surface, draws breath after breath and coughs up muddy water.

He'd never lost his grip on Sherlock. He kicks and kicks and kicks and manages to get both of them to the shore. He shoves Sherlock – limp and pale – onto the reeds that grow in the waterline. He rolls ungracefully onto the grass bank, climbs up onto all fours, and shoves Sherlock onto his back.

His lips are blue, his face pale as death. There are moss and flecks of mud in his curls which are now flat against his head. His chest is not moving.

Mr Ainsley had taught them something last term: how to help someone who isn't breathing. Something about thirty and two. Tears streak down his cheeks, panic slithering tendrils into his chest as Mycroft tries to remember. He wants Mummy and Father, but there's nobody here but him, and Sherlock is _dead_!

Then, he remembers what the firemen had done. That's it – push the chest and blow air into the lungs. Thirty and two. _Thirty and two_.

He gets to it. How much should he press, could he break bones? Standing on his knees, he plants his palms on Sherlock's chest and pushes in, thirty times, quickly, _quickly._

He coughs a little, draws in as big a breath as he can, and blows it into Sherlock's mouth. On the second time, he remembers what Mr Ainsley had said – he needs to pinch the nose shut.

He presses down on the chest, thirty times. Draws a breath, blows it in, and after the second time, Sherlock coughs pond water straight into his face and starts breathing. Mycroft taps his cheek, shakes his shoulders a little, yells his name once, twice, three times, and finally, Sherlock's eyes flutter open. He looks bewildered.

"Mycoff?" he asks, which is what he'd been calling Mycroft when he was much smaller.

"Yeah," Mycroft says, and he's crying because he's happy and scared and everything else all wrapped into one. He gathers Sherlock into his lap, holds tight.

"I believe you," he whispers into Sherlock's wet curls. "I believe you now. Victor was in the water, and he let you go."

 _You need to let him go, now, too_ , Mycroft wants to say but his earlier attempts at making his tiny baby brother see sense have fallen on deaf ears.

Sherlock pushes his tiny palms against his T-shirt, leans away from him. He's frowning. "Who's Victor?"

Mycroft's brows lift. "You don't remember?"

Sherlock shakes his head. He doesn't lie. He never lies. He doesn't understand why some people do. He's always honest, so much that other children don't like it.

Mycroft bites his lip as he scrambles to his feet, holding on tight to the shivering body in his lap. Sherlock wraps his arms around his neck. Mycroft manages to lean down so that he can grab his cardigan and quickly wrap it around Sherlock. He is only now wearing his T-shirt, but it doesn't matter how cold he is – all that matters is that it's over now and they can go back inside, sit in front of the fireplace and get warm. Mummy will be mad, but it can't be helped.

"Sherlock?" he asks quietly after they've managed to climb up the bank. "Do you remember... Eurus?"

Wet curls whip against Mycroft's cheek as Sherlock shakes his head. "Your... us?" he tries to repeat.

"It doesn't matter," Mycroft says, teeth chattering. "It doesn't matter. It's just us, now, and Mummy and Father. It's going to be all right."

 

-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

 

**––– 30 YEARS LATER –––**  
  


John steps out of the shower, taking care not to trip since the floor is slippery from the water that always runs down along the shower curtain. Sherlock always lifts it out of the tub, saying that he refuses to risk the disgusting sensation of it being inside the tub and clinging to him.

John has not been particularly looking forward to this day arriving, even though it's a Saturday.

Victor Trevor's funeral is today. After decades of not knowing what had happened to their son, the Trevors finally get to lay him to rest. John's feelings are conflicted – his fate had become entangled with the little boy's when he'd stood in the well, fingers coming into contact with what he soon realised was not the skull of a beloved family dog but that of a small human being.

At least he's got no plans for tomorrow. Maybe there'll be a case so that he wouldn't be tempted to accept a GP locum shift. Even a short, boring, easy case would be much nicer than telling fifty people in a row that no, antibiotics will not cure the common cold.

They're taking Rosie with them to the funeral. She won't understand much yet, but perhaps it's never too early to start introducing the fundamental concepts of life and death. Not that she had been spared of facing human mortality – quite the contrary. It's a blessing that she was only a baby and could not grasp the entirety or the earth-shattering ramifications of the event when Mary died. John had made a vow not to avoid talking about Mary to the little girl. The Holmeses are a good example how not talking about things helps no one.

Sherlock is playing his violin in the sitting room; some modern piece the melody of which John hasn't been able to catch. He's been at it for a few weeks, and it's getting more fluent. During the last half an hour, Sherlock hasn't ground to a halt once but continued from part to part with little pause. He's behaving surprisingly calmly; then again, it's been two months since the events of Musgrave Hall. He's had at least that much time to come to terms with everything, and the discovery of Victor's remains will mean closure for him, too. Eurus is a separate issue; nobody knows if he'll be able to have any kind of a constructive relationship with her, ever.

John can hear Rosie's delighted giggle from the living room; he had put her in a playpen there before going to the bathroom. She loves listening to Sherlock play; she could do so for hours. She watches, mesmerized, as he walks around the sitting room, swaying slightly as he gets lost in the music. It doesn't matter what he plays; she likes it all. John has noticed, though, that Sherlock tends to avoid playing mournful tunes when she's around. He's probably right – Rosie's life has had plenty enough sadness.

John reaches for the door handle and then recalls that he hasn't shaved, yet. He turns on his heels, steps to the sink, looks up at the mirror... and frowns.

Someone has used their finger to write the words ' _John Bluebeard_ ' on the steam condensed on the mirror surface.

He unlocks the door, wraps a towel around his waist. "Sherlock!"

A few more notes echo down the hall, then his flatmate appears, the lapels of his blue dressing gown flapping as he strides through the kitchen and to the bathroom door. "Yes?"

John steps aside and gestures for him to come inside. He quickly checks the door to Sherlock's bedroom – closed, but not locked.

Sherlock pivots on his heel and faces him with a slightly baffled expression. "Well?"

John points to the mirror. The steam is beginning to fade, but parts of the words can still be read on the surface, at least since John knows what they had been. To Sherlock, they now probably only look like random streaking of the evaporating steam.

"Did you write that?" John demands. Sherlock isn't a fan of pranks, but this might be some sort of an experiment. Maybe on how good he is at sneaking around the flat without John noticing.

"Did I write what?"

He looks so confounded that John is very tempted to believe he isn't lying through his teeth. Every time he has busted Sherlock doing something strange, he has owned up because he rarely understands why John would be unhappy about it.

He looks at the mirror again instead of trying to play human lie detector on Sherlock's expression.

The words have now disappeared.

"Never mind," he says. He's probably just tired.

Then again, ghostly writing on a mirror wouldn't be the strangest thing by far that he has ever seen in Sherlock's company.

 

**––– The End –––**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Perhaps a reader or two may have wondered why the title of the story or some details in it sound familiar...?
> 
> This story is dedicated to my dear friend D. Growing up together, me and her devoured all the ghost books we could find at the local library, including Mary Downing Hahn's "Wait Till Helen Comes", which remained my favourite novel for years. This is a loose retelling of that story and contains a few direct references to it, including the name Heather Harper and the book Mycroft is trying to read to Sherlock. The original novel, which won multiple children's book awards, is an engaging and thoughtful story, not only about the supernatural but also about family trauma, guilt and depression. Being familiar with it is in no way required for reading this.
> 
> As it turns out, me and D both became writers. I do my little ficcery, but D has had several original novels published already in our native language. Rock on, girl!
> 
> This story was posted as part of the [January 2018 Sherlock challenge](https://sherlockchallenge.tumblr.com/post/169299764610/sherlockchallenge-welcome-to-the-first-sherlock), the theme of which was "Change", but the draft was written earlier.
> 
> I want to thank The Coven for its usual cheerleading and helpful beta commentary regarding this story.


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